23 June 2026
Immediate actions, third-party reviews and next steps
KPMG Australia (KPMG) plays an important role in capital markets, the economy and society. Many thousands of our people turn up to work every day to do purposeful work, in the right way, with integrity.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee into Corporations and Financial Services inquiry has shone the light on our failings, including unethical behaviour by senior people, and also the human impact of our handling of the whistleblower. We are now focused on ensuring none of this happens again.
We need to own and address these issues. These related to our use of confidential client information, integrity and objectivity of senior personnel, our engagement with a whistleblower and our oversight and management of these issues. We have not met our own expectations, or those of the whistleblower, clients and broader stakeholders.
These failings do not reflect the values of KPMG. We owe it to our people, clients and other stakeholders to understand these failings, learn from them and address them. We are committed to doing so.
Accountability has been taken for these failings, but we know we need to do more. That’s why KPMG is undertaking a program of work to identify and address issues to improve our firm. This program will cover our governance, culture and ethics, and controls.
We will also continue to advocate for strengthened whistleblower protections and partnership reform, including the establishment of Limited Liability Partnerships with corporate-style governance requirements, as seen in other jurisdictions. We believe these reforms will improve governance and accountability while better protecting those who speak up.
This Action Plan documents our approach to addressing these issues.
- Appointing an independent Chair.
- Appointing independent directors to the Australian Board to ensure balance of independent and non-independent members going forward.
- Reviewing and updating the role and remit of the board in line with corporate governance best practices. This will include ensuring independent board members are involved in Board sub-committees overseeing matters including audit quality, ethics, whistleblower oversight.
- Conducting an independent retrospective review of the firm’s whistleblowing system, with Principia Advisory appointed to conduct the review. Publishing the Principia Advisory findings.
- Reviewing and updating its conduct and consequences framework to further discourage misconduct and ensure that appropriate sanctions and other consequences are applied if misconduct occurs.
- Updating its whistleblower policies and procedures and providing associated firmwide training to ensure clear guidance and requirements for how whistleblower disclosures must be identified, escalated and governed, and for how whistleblowers should be managed.
- Strengthening the firm’s system of quality management, with a specific focus on controls related to compliance with professional and ethical standards.
- Amending audit pursuit policies and procedures to strengthen ethical barriers.
- Mandating firmwide training on client confidentiality, privacy and information protection, with additional targeted confidentiality training for all Audit partners and directors.
The Action Plan is intended to be a ‘live’ document, updated as findings and recommendations from the third-party reviews become available, or as new information comes to light. KPMG will engage a third-party to assess and assure progress against this Action Plan and will publish updates periodically.
These measures are in addition to the independent review announced by the Commonwealth Department of Finance, which KPMG welcomes and will cooperate with fully.
Some actions are subject to partner approval.
Download KPMG's Action Plan
This Action Plan includes:
